by Oliver Hill
Ambi: people in line. Up under narr
Narration
There was a long line outside the Whitman theatre at Brooklyn College on a recent night in April. Hawkers unloaded their socialist pamphlets on "why U.S. troops are occupying Haiti".
Nat Sound: flautist
Inside the auditorium a Flautist was setting the mood.
Post Flautist full, several seconds
Narration
Actor Ossie Davis, the first speaker, read from the letters of Fredrick Douglas on the Haitian revolution and its legacy of underdevelopment. The problem, he concluded, was race.
Davis
Haiti is Black. And we have not yet forgiven Haiti for being black.
Narration
Kim Ives of the New York based Haiti Support network referred to rebel leader Guy Philipe implying with a series of questions that U.S. and Dominican officials turned a blind eye or even assisted in the buildup of violent opposition leading to Aristide's departure.
Ives
We want to understand how the leaders of the rebel leaders were shielded from arrest despite being convicted of crimes in Haiti and indicted in other countries?
Narration
Later in the Program, Democratic Representative Maxine Waters recounted her involvement in bringing Aristide back from Africa, where she said he was in forced isolation from the rest of the world. Waters has spearheaded the Congressional Black Caucus in demanding an inquiry into Aristideís departure. She speaks with him daily and claims his resignation was the result of coercion.
Waters
No matter what Colin Powell has to say, the United States, France and Canada conspired and implemented a coup díetat against Jean Bertrand Aristide.
ButCut
Joseph
I have not heard all the democrats in this country who are defending Aristide today say anything when Aristide was working with his thugs and killing people.
Narration
Haiti's transitional government is represented in Washington by newly appointed Ambassador Raymond Joseph.
Joseph
A lot of people today who are calling the invaders of haiti all kind of names, forget that Aristide in 1994 got back to Haiti when he asked for 23,000 troops. I think the foreign troops coming in to help rebuild a security force, I don't say the armed forces, in my view, they are welcome.
Narration
Joseph escaped Haiti with a bounty on his head more than 20 years ago under the Dictatorship of Duvalier, and has since been editor of the Haiti Observateur, a Weekly Newspaper based in Brooklyn.
Joesph
It's a false issue to tell me that Aristide, the elected president was ousted by thugs. In my view, it's thugs against thugs.
Narration
Joseph was appointed Ambassador once before in 1990 and helped organize Haiti's first ever democratic elections, which brought Aristide to power. Still he welcomes the president's early departure from office.
Joseph
When a president is democratically elected, does that give him the right to rule dictatorially and then stay in power?
Narration
Joseph has used his paper to denounce Aristide. He acknowledged that whether by action or inaction, the United States played a central role in Haiti's latest Political upheaval.
Joseph
Why would the Bush Administration come to the support of a government that is sending 25% of the cocaine from Colombia to the United States, that's from the New York Times, we at the Haitian Observateur have been reporting this for a long time, so It came to the point that the Bush Administration felt that maintaining Aristide would be disadvantageous to the United States.
Narration
On an official trip to Haiti earlier this month, Colin Powell announced the U.S. may prosecute the ousted President on Corruption charges. Meanwhile the Caribbean Community has refused to recognize the interim goverment of Gerard Latortue and has called for an investigation into Aristide's departure. Finger pointing, conflicting accounts and calls for investigations have if anything brought more questions than answers. Oliver Hill, Columbia Radio News.